Sports
Why a 5-foot-6, 160-pound SEC walk-on who can't attend most games wouldn't stop until he made the team
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Sam Salz emerged from Texas A&M’s Bright Football Complex at dusk in early February, eager to explain how he got here.
“Over there,” he pointed, patting down his yarmulke with his other hand. “That’s where it happened.”
The patch of land in the distance sat adjacent to where the Aggies football team practiced. Salz, just a student with a dream in the spring of 2021, would arrive at the field every day an hour before Texas A&M practiced and stay an hour after the practice concluded.
A 5-foot-6, 160-pound Orthodox Jewish student who had never played organized football, Salz intended to try out for the SEC program as a walk-on. He worked on getting into shape and getting faster, even if he didn’t know how. He used old shoes instead of cones for drills. He lined up trash cans to simulate the line of scrimmage. He had no cleats. He didn’t even have a position to practice. He just worked.
A graduate of Kohelet Yeshiva High School — a Modern Orthodox college prep school in Philadelphia with roughly 100 students that did not field a football team — Salz had an improbable mission. And, like always, he had a plan.
Salz thought if he showed up every day and worked out as if he were on the team, he’d be noticed. But he didn’t leave it to chance. That fall, he attended then-head coach Jimbo Fisher’s weekly radio show at Rudy’s Country Store and B-B-Q to meet the man who would determine his fate.
“I walked up to him and looked him in the eye and said, ‘I’m Sam Salz and I’m going to walk on to your football team,’” he recalled, ignoring a team policy requiring walk-ons to have played varsity football in high school.
Fisher looked back at the undersized Salz, being more gracious than serious, and replied, “I’d be honored.”
Salz kept returning to the radio show, the same way he would to that patch of land. He approached Fisher again and asked if he could attend practice to better understand what the Aggies did. Salz scribbled down what he learned and incorporated it into his independent workouts.
The field Salz used was separated from the Aggies practice fields by a chain-link fence.
“I told myself, ‘I’m on this team,’” Salz said. “They are practicing on that side of the fence, and I’m practicing on this side of the fence, but I’m on the team. That was my firm belief. I’d practice, and the energy was great. Guys would come out of practice and realize this guy in a yarmulke was working out every day, and they’d hype me up. Coaches would notice. I’d talk to the coaches.”
Salz didn’t realize the coaches were talking about him, too.
Salz, 21, became obsessed with playing college football at a young age, for reasons he can’t exactly pinpoint.
“People talk about ‘Rudy’ to me all the time,” Salz said of the popular motion picture about a Notre Dame fan willing to do anything to make the team. “It’s funny, I’ve never seen it.”
College football games largely fall on Shabbat — the Jewish Sabbath, observed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. As a result, he didn’t grow up watching the sport.
For an observant Orthodox Jew, Shabbat is an entire day meant for communing with God, whether it be studying Torah, praying or being with your community. Judaic law limits distractions. There’s no work, no lifting weights, no cooking, no cleaning, no business transactions, no usage of electricity and no riding in motorized vehicles, among other rules.
And, obviously no playing football.
Sam Salz can suit up for the Aggies only after sundown for Saturday games. (Texas A&M Athletics)
So, what drew Salz to Texas A&M?
While in high school, Salz — like many other kids — got swept into the Dude Perfect craze on the internet. A group of friends took the web by storm by recording trick shots and putting them on YouTube. Salz learned that the members of Dude Perfect — now headquartered in Frisco, Texas — were college roommates at Texas A&M. Salz became infatuated with the school, a former military institution known for big-time ambitions, revered traditions, oil tycoons and Midnight Yell on Friday nights and Aggies football games on Saturdays.
Sam Salz started out as a running back but is now a wide receiver for the Aggies. (Texas A&M Athletics)
He researched. The university has a total enrollment north of 70,000 students and there are an estimated 500 Jewish students on campus, according to the University’s Hillel website, less than 1 percent of the population.
He reached out to Yossi Lazaroff, the rabbi of the Texas A&M Chabad. He concluded College Station was the right fit.
“It was really about the culture, what the school represents and the alumni network,” he said. “It’s very different from any other school in America. It also has a strong Jewish community, even if it’s not large.”
Salz said he felt a desire to prove to himself — and to other Orthodox Jewish people — that religious beliefs don’t have to infringe on goals or pursuit of happiness. For him, for some reason, that involved football.
“I’ve always been a ‘see if I can do it’ type,” Salz said. “I don’t know how this got into my head. People think I’m BS-ing, but I always had this belief in my head, back to when I was a little kid, that I had to play college football or else I wouldn’t have done everything I could’ve — or should’ve — in life.”
When Salz was a child, his school held a fundraiser selling cookie dough. The student who sold the most won a flat-screen television. Salz became obsessed and, with the help of a family friend who was an accountant, devised a sales strategy.
“He won,” said his mother, Marianna Salz. “I’m of the mindset that if you want to try something, go ahead and do it. I know my son, so this wasn’t as big of a surprise and shock as it may have been for other people. He is a determined person. When he told me he wanted to do this, I was like, ‘OK, this is your next thing. Try it. Do it.’”
Even with all of Salz’s planning, he never realized Fisher could see him working out from his Kyle Field office.
“In the offseason, even on days we didn’t practice, he’d still come out there,” said Mark Robinson, Texas A&M’s associate athletic director at the time and currently the chief of staff at Florida. “There’s a balcony that overlooks the field. (Fisher) would see him out there and just say, ‘That’s the same kid who comes to the radio show. He’s always working out, and I love his drive.’”
When he first got to College Station in 2021, Salz took online classes at a Texas A&M system school and couldn’t try out for the football team until he became a full-time student on the main campus. And then before the 2022 season, Texas A&M had so many players in the program that it didn’t hold walk-on tryouts.
But during a difficult 2022 season — one that would include a six-game losing streak — Fisher wanted to make a statement to the locker room. He wanted someone like Salz, who wanted something bigger than seemed possible and was willing to work for it, on his roster.
“Halfway through the season, that’s when I got the text from Mark,” Salz said.
The text from Robinson was simple: “Sam, do you have some time to come by the football offices today or tomorrow?”
As Salz responded yes and received more information about the walk-on process, he couldn’t contain himself.
He screamed, jumped up and down and fist-pumped as hard as he could.
Fisher and Robinson invited him on the team, even though he lacked the size and the experience necessary to compete in the SEC.
“I don’t want to sound arrogant or self-aggrandizing when I say this. But there was something that I was willing to do that most people were not,” Salz said. “I made human connections and made myself a known person to them. I think (Fisher) appreciated that persistence. It was something old-school coaches would appreciate.”
Salz never hid his faith, proudly wearing his yarmulke and tzitzit, the head covering and the knotted fringes or tassels on the Jewish prayer shawl that serve as reminders of the 613 commandments in the Torah. But he was initially worried that the coaching staff wouldn’t be understanding of the time constraints of his religion and his need to eat only kosher food.
Sam Salz attended a high school with roughly 100 students. Now he is on a team that plays in a stadium with more than 100,000 seats.
Texas A&M, though, accommodated Salz. He isn’t expected to participate in team activities on Jewish holidays. The first practice after he was invited onto the team fell on Yom Kippur, and he didn’t attend. Team nutritionist Tiffany Ilten makes sure Salz has access to kosher meals, which they get from a distributor in Cherry Hill, N.J. A microwave in the team facility reads “kosher food only.”
“Our main priority was making sure that all of our student-athletes are fed and nourished,” Ilten said. “It was a challenge at first, but not in a bad way. It was just something new we all had to educate ourselves on.”
Salz and Robinson, who is also Jewish, connected by wrapping tefillin, small leather boxes and straps, around their arms and heads, symbolically binding themselves to God.
Salz, who remains part of the program after Fisher’s November firing and the hire of Mike Elko, started out as a running back. He was brought along slowly, still lacking foundational football knowledge and the physical makeup to run between tackles. The longer he has been on the team, the more he’s been incorporated onto the scout team, where he’s likely to make his biggest impact.
He moved to receiver, where Texas A&M needed depth. He understands his physical limitations when matching up with elite athletes. But as he talked about it, he reached into his pocket and shared a clip of him running a drag route in practice and making a nice catch.
“He goes hard all the time,” Texas A&M strength coach Tommy Moffitt said. “There is a size discrepancy between him and the other guys, but he doesn’t let that discourage him. The players have embraced him, and he works his tail off.”
Added former A&M wide receiver Ainias Smith, a fifth-round pick of the Eagles in the 2024 NFL Draft: “We needed somebody like that on the team. Once people get here, it seems like everybody feels like they made it. His story motivates us to keep going.”
Salz believes he is the only Orthodox Jewish player in college football. It’s not something that is tracked by the NCAA.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for him is reconciling that no matter how good he gets, he will always have restrictions on game day. If the Aggies play during the day, he can’t attend because he’s observing Shabbat.
For night games, he walks more than a mile from his apartment to Kyle Field. There are workers by the entrance who let him into the building — he can’t use his thumbprint scanners on Shabbat — and he finishes out the sabbath in the team rooms. He studies Torah, eats a meal and then gets suited up while the sun goes down. In the middle of the third quarter, he runs out of the tunnel and joins his team in his No. 39 jersey, yarmulke and tzitzit.
“My teammates joke that in the new NCAA video game that my rating should be a 99 overall but I can only be used in the fourth quarter of night games,” he said.
Salz has yet to appear in a game. He couldn’t participate in Texas A&M’s all-walk-on kickoff team (which paid homage to the 12th Man Kickoff Team from the 1980s) during its win over Abilene Christian last November because the game was during the day.
So why does he put himself through this routine if there isn’t the payoff of eventually playing?
“I know why I’m doing it: for my Jewish brothers and sisters,” Salz said. “I knew I’d be in a position to inspire a lot of people.”
(Top image Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photo: courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics)
Sports
F1’s rising star Franco Colapinto has already been compared to Messi, but will the hype last?
Stardom in Argentina is a unique cultural phenomenon, particularly for the country’s professional athletes. In a nation where sport is debated as passionately as politics and world affairs, one is more likely to be polarizing than universally admired.
Which is why the story of rising Formula 1 star Franco Colapinto is unique.
The 21-year-old Argentine replaced Williams’ American driver Logan Sargeant in August. Since then, Colapinto has experienced a constant whirlwind as one of F1’s most popular newcomers. His best finish was eighth place at September’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. He was the first South American in F1 history to finish in the top 12 in his first three races.
But even a casual observer of F1 knows that Colapinto is still many miles away from breaking into its aristocracy.
In Argentina, that matters not. Colapinto is flying the Argentina flag in one of world sport’s most visible arenas. He has captivated the nation within a few months. His youthful personality and approachability as a sought-after public figure have endeared him to his countrymen and women, who don’t always appreciate their idols.
Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi are both Argentine football royalty but took wildly different paths to kingship. Maradona was a diamond in the rough, unearthed from the humble Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Fiorito. A people’s champion from an early age, the brash and unapologetically outspoken Maradona would go from phenom to deity in Argentina after leading his national team to glory at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
Maradona led Argentina to a World Cup trophy in 1986. (Archivo El Grafico, Getty Images)
Messi, meanwhile, was discovered on the dirt pitches of Rosario, 300km from capital Buenos Aires, as a pre-teen with local club Newell’s Old Boys. He was quickly spotted by an agent who connected Messi’s family with decision-makers at leading Spanish club Barcelona. At 13, Messi moved from Rosario to Europe, etching his own story into the annals of world football while away from home.
Like Colapinto, who left Argentina for Italy at 14 to pursue racing, Messi’s formative years took place thousands of miles from his homeland. Despite Messi’s unworldly talent, he had a distant relationship with Argentina’s public. He became a pariah, labeled a foreigner after losing four major finals with the national team. The press was Messi’s principal nemesis. He was ostracized before he was idolized.
Today, Messi is revered as a resilient legend after leading Argentina to the World Cup title two years ago and back-to-back Copa America trophies in 2021 and 2024. His transformation is now a case study of how Argentines measure success in sports. It’s not a cautionary tale for Colapinto, though.
In a football-crazed country such as Argentina (and throughout South America), F1 is a niche sport. It’s luxurious and virtually unattainable — the cultural opposite of football.
Colapinto’s ascension has also coincided with one of the greatest moments for Argentine football. Previously vilified as underachievers, Messi and his teammates have reached a new level of celebrity. They are social media and popular culture darlings. Once easy targets for criticism, national-team players are now routinely celebrated and defended by the press. Their success united the country and softened a notoriously toxic media environment.
(Peter Fox, Getty Images)
The timing has been ideal for Colapinto. The Argentine press has already referred to him as a genius and a generational talent — plaudits that have been reserved back home for Maradona, Messi, former tennis star Gabriela Sabatini and NBA legend Emanuel Ginobili. Pundits have audaciously said that Colapinto is the next Ayrton Senna.
The late Senna, an F1 icon, sits rightfully alongside Brazil’s greatest footballers, including Pelé, Zico and Ronaldo. By contrast, the hype has intensified around Colapinto so much that, in some media circles, he has been compared to Messi.
“I don’t think I’m anywhere near Leo Messi,” Colapinto recently told the Fast and the Curious podcast. “He’s at another level and I cannot believe that people compare me to Leo. I’m like ‘What’s wrong with you?’.”
Diario Olé columnist Diego Macias described Colapinto as “the ideal combo”.
“There’s a vibe about him, he’s witty and laid back, and he could give lessons on charisma and empathy to more than a few people. He doesn’t have a ceiling,” Macias wrote.
He certainly is a marketer’s dream. Colapinto is a social media influencer who has quickly amassed more than 3million followers on Instagram. The trail of paparazzi that follows him around the world seems to grow, as well. Naturally, Colapinto is a football fan. He revealed recently that he supports Buenos Aires club Boca Juniors.
At the Italian Grand Prix in September, Colapinto’s F1 debut, hordes of fans waving Boca and Argentina jerseys showed up to support him. Argentina national team coach Lionel Scaloni told reporters on the day of the race that he was watching Colapinto compete at Monza on a split screen alongside an English Premier League match.
Swept along by the excitement, Scaloni said it was “very strange” to have been distracted by something other than football.
“It’s exciting for Argentines to have a driver, and for him to have done it the way he did: the crowd in Monza with the flags, the fans going wild… I congratulate him. We’re proud to have a Formula 1 driver in the top category,” said Scaloni.
Although he preferred to not name which ones have reached out to him, Colapinto said that he has spoken to several current Argentina national-team players about his current success. “It’s very big for the country, and they are just enjoying the moment, and yes, it’s great,” he said.
It’s been a steady climb towards the mainstream for Colapinto.
There isn’t a day that he isn’t part of Argentina’s daily sports coverage. He has earned sponsorship deals from Argentina-based companies such as YPF, an oil and gas conglomerate that also sponsors the national football team. Argentine DJ and producer Bizarrap joined software firm Globant and e-commerce company Mercado Libre to provide Colapinto with the financial backing he needed to compete in F1.
Colapinto is innocently brash. He has good looks, is media-friendly and has shown courage on the track. That is the ideal combo in today’s sporting landscape, where athletes are their brand. Before the Mexico City Grand Prix last weekend, Colapinto was featured in a humorous race-inspired ad for Mercado Libre. He also graced the cover of Forbes magazine’s Mexico edition on the eve of the race.
“Formula 1 is now seeing how much they miss those Latino fans and those Argentine fans, because they have been extremely insane,” Colapinto told reporters before the race in Mexico City. “In only a couple of races, they have gone crazy and the support that they have, I honestly haven’t seen it in any other driver. It’s special and unique.”
Even if he does not yet have a guaranteed F1 seat for the 2025 season, in Argentina, he has become just as popular as Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc. In Latin America, Colapinto joins Mexican driver Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez as the bearers of the region’s rich history with F1.
“What a lot of us believed in the past was that it was impossible for an Argentine driver to get to Formula 1,” Colapinto said. “It’s great to see so many Latinos all together. You can see in other sports there was some fighting between the Brazilians and the Mexicans and Argentinians but now in Formula 1, in motorsport, it looks like everyone is together and everyone is supporting me, like the Brazilians, the Mexicans and the Argentinians.”
In Argentina, almost everything associated with the furor surrounding Colapinto has gone viral on social media. After he finished 12th in Mexico (ahead of Perez and Fernando Alonso), cameras captured the Ferrari pit watching the media and fan frenzy that now follows him on F1 Sundays.
“I love you, Franco!,” one woman screamed. Diario Olé’s caption on a photo of the scene read, “The Ferrari team trying to understand the craziness around Colapinto.”
Last week, a popular restaurant in Buenos Aires added Colapinto to its menu. El Antojo (The Craving) has become known for shaping its milanesa, a breaded beef cutlet that is the unofficial national dish of Argentina, into the likeness of celebrities. Messi and Argentina teammate Emiliano Martinez, as well as former national-team winger Angel Di Maria, have previously been honored in breadcrumbs.
Colapinto has not returned home since going from an unknown amateur to a cult hero in Argentina. Asked how he is adjusting to his new life as a megastar, he replied in typically humble terms.
“It’s been a lot, and luckily I haven’t gone to Argentina yet, so I don’t know how it’s down there, but from what I hear it’s going a bit crazy,” he said. “I love the support that I get.”
Colapinto hasn’t won anything yet in a sport defined by pole positions, top speeds and perennial championships. His future in F1 is also uncertain, as he is not guaranteed a drive with Williams next season. Nevertheless, Colapinto is riding a wave of attention in Argentina that is coexisting with Messi’s acclaim.
Argentina has the world’s best national football team, which has led to an ongoing commemoration by the press of its recent accomplishments. From a sporting perspective, things are as good as they have ever been.
Will Colapinto continue to benefit from this newfound praise or will his star rise based on consistent sporting merit? One thing is certain: Argentina’s hunger for more trophies is matched only by their passion for sporting prestige.
Luke Smith contributed to this story.
(Top photo: Joe Portlock / Getty Images)
Cleveland Browns fans came under scrutiny this week after quarterback Deshaun Watson suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals last month.
The incident, which was criticized by Browns players, was brought up again this week by Kelly Stafford, the wife of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, after she said some Minnesota Vikings celebrated the injury of one of their own players in last week’s game.
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson, #4, is carted off the field after being injured in the first half of an NFL football game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024 in Cleveland. (AP Photo/David Richard)
During her latest episode of the “Timeout” podcast, Stafford took aim at NFL fans for the poor display of sportsmanship.
“Speaking of injuries, we had one go down – and this goes with the Deshaun Watson situation – as he went down, fans cheering during injuries. It’s just – it’s enough. And I’m not going to sit here and rail on fans because you guys are also the reason that they get to play the sport they love, but I do think there’s some sort of line that is getting crossed that should never be crossed.”
She continued, “And that is cheering when your players or when other team’s players go down. These are people who have families. This is their livelihood so to cheer as you watch their kind of dreams crumble, I’m not really a fan of that.”
Matthew Stafford, #9 of the Los Angeles Rams, and his wife Kelly Stafford look on prior to the game between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 3, 2023 in Los Angeles. (Michael Owens/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
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Stafford did not elaborate on which player was injured, but she said some fans began doing the Vikings Skol chant at the time.
“It just shouldn’t happen. It really just shouldn’t happen. We are all better people than that.”
“When you’re at a game and you see someone go down, let’s just think about the individual and not about the sport or the team or your fantasy f—ing football team that I don’t give a s— about. We just gotta be human in that [moment].”
Kelly Stafford, wife of Matthew Stafford, #9 of the Los Angeles Rams, reacts on the sideline prior to a game against the Detroit Lions in the NFC Wild Card Playoffs at Ford Field on Jan. 14, 2024 in Detroit. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Stafford has not shied away from calling out NFL fans in the past.
Last season, she took aim at Detroit Lions fans when she alleged that they booed at her children during a Rams game in Detroit in January.
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Tony White could have easily been coaching from UCLA’s sideline on Saturday instead of standing across the field.
Nebraska’s defensive coordinator was among the candidates for the job opening that went to DeShaun Foster, a teammate of White’s for three seasons when the latter was a Bruins linebacker.
One of those pushing for White’s candidacy was Nebraska coach Matt Rhule, who has his own UCLA connection. Rhule was the Bruins’ defensive line coach during the 2000 season, when both White and Foster were on the team.
“I thought Tony would have been an excellent, excellent choice,” Rhule told Nebraska’s “Sports Nightly” program in February. “Martin Jarmond, the A.D. there, I had a chance to speak with him. I don’t want to lose Tony at all, I love Tony, I want him to coach here forever, but there’ll come a time when he has an opportunity to become a head coach. And he deserves that.”
White’s defense at Nebraska ranks among the top 20 in the country in several categories, including yards allowed per game (301.9, No. 16), points allowed per game (18.1, No. 18) and rushing yards allowed per game (98, No. 12).
Foster momentarily fooled reporters this week when asked how well he knew White and Rhule.
“Don’t know them at all,” Foster deadpanned.
Didn’t he overlap with them at UCLA?
“Nope, not at all,” Foster continued, before finally relenting. “Yeah, I played with Tony for three years and Matt Rhule was our [defensive line coach], so I know them pretty well. It was fun to see coach Rhule at Big Ten media [day] and he coached for the [Carolina] Panthers too, so that was exciting. And then Tony was a linebacker here, so we had a few battles on both sides of the ball.”
White could have something special in store for the Bruins in a rematch of sorts after getting beaten out by his old friend earlier this year.
Here are four other things to watch when the Bruins (2-5 overall, 1-4 Big Ten) face the Cornhuskers (5-3, 2-3) starting at 12:30 p.m. PDT at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln:
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